


Strings

by ShadeDuelist



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 18:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3661134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeDuelist/pseuds/ShadeDuelist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(this is another genderbent TF2 fanfic, with more fem!Solly and fem!Engie)</p><p>Guitar music and confessions go well together, as Jane Doe finds out one night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strings

“Well, ah can’t tell yew anything… yew don’t already know… ah keep on tryin’, ah should jus’ let it go…” Looking up from her rocketlauncher, Jane Doe heard a painfully familiar voice drift through the opened window, accompanied by the equally familiar sound of a guitar being played.  Dropping her weapon and the rag she’d been using to clean it back on the bed, she walked briskly to the door leading outside, into the cold night.  There, her friend sat on a log, watching the campfire Pyro had built some time ago, probably minding it while the pyromaniac got themselves some marshmallows.  “…Ah keep on singing - yer eyes, they jus’ roll… sounds like someone else’s song, from a long time ago…”  Their engineer was the one playing, of course.  Delia Conagher was an impressive woman, no doubt about it: despite her shorter stature than the rest of the ladies on base, she was the most fierce of the bunch, hiding it well behind a perfect poise and eleven hard science PhDs that  _nobody in their right mind_ would ever question, not after having seen the woman at work.  Her sentry worked like clockwork, with deadly precision and masterful timing, and her dispenser had kept all of the team alive through an enemy raid at some point.  The other team’s spy could also testify that she had the strength to back up her intelligence, as could Jane - she’d sworn never to arm-wrestle the woman anymore since only Heavy could beat her…  But despite her roughened look, Delia had a soft side to her, which showed at this very moment.  No one else on the base could play the guitar, let alone with that level of soulful mastery. The song, however, was unfamiliar, and Jane found herself leaning against the wall just a few feet away from the Texan, so she could hear the rest of the song without interrupting her friend.  “Yew already know the story, and the chords are jus’ the same… Yew already know I love yew, an’ ah sound like what’s his name… but yeh can’t stop me, ah want yew to know… ah know it sounds like someone else’s song, from a long time ago…” Jane swallowed her sigh - the song did justice to the engineer’s low, plaintive voice that sometimes felt like it stuck to your ears like honey stuck to your mouth and throat - but then, she was discovered as the engineer finally looked up.  “Jane!  Pardner, what are yeh doin’ way over there?  C’mon over, sit down next tuh me… ah kin use a li’l company.”

“Well, if you’re sure, truckie…”, Jane said, to which the engineer simply answered by scooting a little more to the side.

“Ah were jus’… watchin’ Pahro’s fire fer a li’l… an’ gittin’ mighty melancholy…”

“If anyone is allowed to get ‘melancholy’, truckie-”, Jane started, only for the Texan to respond with a half-annoyed sigh.

“Ah got a  _name_ , pardner… yeh mind  _usin’_  it every now an’ then?”  The soldier sighed.

“I thought you didn’t like us callin’ you by your first name.”, Jane muttered, prompting a shrug from the engineer.

“…Yeah, well, not tuhnight. Ah’m feelin’ a li’l down, mind indulgin’ me fer once?”

“Okay then…  If anyone is allowed to get ‘melancholy’,  _Delia_ , it’s  _you_.  You’re the one that gets to see the ugliest side of it all.  Only Sheila gets backstabbed as much as you do-”

“Hell, this ain’t ‘bout gittin’ backstabbed.  Not like tha’ anyways.  …Ah,  _hell_ …”, the engineer sighed, strumming aimlessly on her guitar in lieu of carrying the conversation, and she hummed a tune that  _did_ strike the soldier as familiar all of a sudden: she started singing along as soon as she could, her voice shrill and contrived in contrast to the female engineer’s though her friend didn’t make a single remark about it.

“We’ll meet again… don’t know where, don’t know when… but I know we’ll meet again some sunny day…” The engineer kept on playing the tune aimlessly after that, and the soldier smiled, leaning back on the log. She remembered the song from the days when she was travelling around in Europe fighting in the war - the men that had sung it to her had always been good-looking and entertaining enough. They’d also all been liars, because she’d met none of them back afterwards.  Sighing, she turned to her friend.  “…Engie, who’re you meetin’ again?”

“Awh, jus’…”, she said, looking at the fire, keeping quiet for a full minute before sighing and picking up her answer again.  “…Jus’ someone from mah past…”  The two women sat in silence for a while again, and then Jane remembered who it might be that Delia was meeting again, and she couldn’t keep her next question in even if she wanted to.

“…Tr-  I mean, Delia, you were married, right?”  Instantly, from the look on her best friend’s face, Jane could tell that she hadn’t brought back happy memories at all: the engineer instantly straightened with a dark frown, her brow creased in the blink of an eye, her light blue eyes showing something cold and remorseless in their depths like the steel of her machinery.  It was also in her tone as she spoke.

“Yeah, ah had a  _husband_ once.”  It sounded like she was a king cobra spitting venom: the word was hissed and ejected from her forcibly.  Then, however, her frown softened and warmth entered both her eyes and her voice again as she chastised herself for her own spiteful tone.  “…C’mon now, Delia, y’know it weren’t all bad… yeah, ah were married, back in the days ‘fore ah came here.  Were a regular miss Suzy Homemaker, even.  Ah were studyin’, sure, but mah feller… John, ‘is name were.  His pa an’ mah pa were in th’same army unit, an’ we met when he came t’visit us tuh ask if’n we’d heard from mah old man yet. …It were love at first sight.”

“What happened?  I mean, if I can-”, Jane started, half expecting her friend to clam up, but Delia surprised her.

“We were gonna have a li’l one.  But ah… lost ‘er.  He turned cold t’me after that - well, we turned cold t’each other.  Some couples, a loss like that, it brings ‘em even closer t’gether, but… not us.  It drove us apart.  We grieved in diff’rent ways, we did.  Ah ran ‘way in mah studies, mah PhDs that he hated so much, an’ he ran ‘way in his liquor. Started steppin’ out on me, stayin’ out all night.  When ah spoke ‘bout it, he hit me.  It… we lived in a li’l town in Texas where women ain’t as, uh,  _liberated_  as they are up north where yew an’ Scout are from: nobody lifted a damn finger tuh help me even if’n ah had bruises up mah arms or in mah face…”  Soldier winced at that, but didn’t speak up, allowing her friend to finish her story:  “Ah weren’t nice t’him neither, but… not the way  _he_ were.  Well, back in those days, it were unheard’a fer a married woman t’have ‘erself someone on the side - an’ no man in ‘is right mind were gonna go fer a married woman unless he were unhappily married ‘imself.  Tha’ there ring on yer finger made yeh a one-man filly. …Then, one night, he… he were drunk outta his wits ‘gain, ah were workin’ on one’a mah pet projects, an’ he hit me.  Blamed me ‘gain.  Said ah were a bad wife, a bad woman… an’ then he went an’ said th’one thing he’d only  _thought_ ‘fore then…”  Delia’s voice wavered ever so slightly, and the square jaw of Jane’s friend tensed just a little - to anyone else, it’d be invisible, but the soldier knew her friend well enough to spot the subtle sign of residual anger combined with sorrow held back behind a mask of calculation and calmth.  “He… said it were  _mah fault_ that we lost our li’l one. Said ah  _killed_ tha’ there baby by doin’ somethin’ wrong.”

“ _What?!_ ”, Jane snapped, feeling sympathetic to her friend’s rage, even if Delia knew how to keep it well beneath the surface.  “He  _did not-_ ”

“Awh, he did, an’ ah…” Suddenly - unexpectedly from Jane’s point of view - the engineer cast a few furtive looks around them, around the empty battlefield and the base and the unlit windows.  As soon as she saw no movement - Pyro seemed to have forgotten their quest for marshmallows, and the fact that the engineer was still waiting for them - she spoke in a quiet, secretive tone: “…Ah got angry, y’see? An’…  Ah were workin’ on one’a mah pet projects.  Yew see, ah were workin’ fer a ballistics course, makin’ a gun - really, it were a prototype’a mah Frontier Justice.  Usin’ a slight magnetic charge applied tuh specially made gunpowder fer some extra power b’hind a bullet… let me tell yeh, that worked like a charm.”

“ _You shot him?_ ”, Jane asked in a whisper.  She couldn’t believe her ears, couldn’t believe her eyes when Delia - sweet, down-to-earth, practical,  _proper_ Delia Conagher! - nodded in affirmation.

“Ah shot ‘im.  An’ then ah dragged ‘is body intuh mah truck an’ drove him out t’the desert.  Dumped ‘im there fer the coyotes t’eat.  Nobody ever found ‘im.  After two days, ah went tuh the police t’report ‘im missin’.  Th’entire town were aware’a how miserable our marriage were, by then, an’ they figured he’d jus’ taken all’a our money an’ ran. After five years, he was officially declared dead, an’ ah were a widow.  Right on the day when ah got mah last PhD.  …Funny thing is, half’a the town must’a heard tha’ there shotgun blast, an’ the fresh bruises on mah face must’a shown he’d come home, but… no one ever said a word…”  Her voice died away, and the soldier found herself staring at the fire, at a loss for words.  Her friend had had terrible luck in her life so far: the man that she’d given her heart to had turned against her, her own body had betrayed her… from the sound of it, Delia had been warm and gentle before all of that happened, with a heart of gold; but the bitter pain of first losing a child and then slowly losing a loved one had taken what was soft and warm about her and had turned it into cold, metallic, mechanic precision.  Suppressing a shiver, she looked at Delia to see the Texan woman look back at her in sudden apprehension, clearly feeling the shift in mood as well.

“Delia… you’ve really had some bad, bad luck…”, Jane said softly, shaking her head and patting the engineer on her shoulder - that gesture made the warmth of the evening and the soft blaze of the fire on their skin return again, and Delia relaxed.

“…Yeah, guess ah did have me a real bad run in life so far… ‘m just a darn fool fer fallin’ fer the wrong type’a man…”

“He probably wasn’t a  _real_ American, his dad must’ve been an immigrant from  _Europe!_ ”, the soldier said vehemently in an attempt to bolster her friend’s improvement in mood: when the southern woman chuckled and ran a hand through her hair which had gotten slightly messy from an entire day’s worth of fighting and readjusting her hardhat and goggles, she chuckled along.  “Bet you’d be a lot happier with a  _real American man_ , cupcake, someone who knows how to treat a woman like you or me right!”

“Heh, yeah, right… nah, ah’m jus’ doomed…”  Idly strumming her guitar, Delia started to softly sing.  “‘s been years, since I been with a feller… Been too long, so I can’t tell yeh… if it were good… Well, his name were Jake an’ he had blue eyes… but he were a devil in disguise… he left me with nothin’ but excuses an’ filthy lies…”  The song seemed familiar to Jane - the melody did, at least - and when Delia sang what clearly was the chorus, she hummed along happily.  “Oh, I don’t know why he left me, or where he went away… I guess I didn’t give a damn about it anyway… ‘cause for twenty-four years ah’ve been feelin’ like a fool in love…”

***

 “...An’ ah’ll never stop feelin’ like a big damn fool in love…”, Delia finished somewhat breathlessly, smiling broadly as she saw Ash approaching, clutching the biggest bag of marshmallows he could find, probably in a desperate bid to hide from Jane how aroused he’d gotten before at the promise of sitting at a fire with her and talking about their night. “Oh, hey there, Pahro!”, she said, and Jane looked up, smiling broadly.

“Hello there, Smokey! ...Yeah, I’ll leave the two of you to your marshmallows, my rocketlauncher still needs polishing and I promised Tashya a rematch of our drink-off of last week. ...Delia, keep him away from the flames, you hear?”, the soldier whispered to the engineer, adding under her breath: “...He might get _ideas…_ ”

“Don’t yeh worry, Jane, ah kin handle ‘im…”, Delia said with a soft smile that seemed to reassure the soldier enough for her to move back away, into the base, leaving Ash to sit down next to the engineer. In a marvellous display of self-restraint, he merely let his hand rest loosely next to hers while he spoke - his voice betrayed how eager he was for her, Delia mused, grinning softly.

“So Jane thinks ‘s me startin’ th’ fire? ...An’ he thinks ‘s me with the pyromaniuh?”

“Guess so. None’a the girls know ‘bout us, or ‘bout _this_ …”, she said, motioning for the small campfire and prompting a shiver from the firestarter, which told Delia he’d taken his evening meds.

“...Heard yuh talk ‘bout John tuh Jane - y’ trust ‘er, huh?”, he asked, and Delia smiled softly, nodding.

“Jane an’ me, we go back a ways. Been fightin’ t’gether fer near-on five years now. ...Yeah, ah trust ‘er. But ah don’t love ‘er, if’n that’s whut yeh’re worried ‘bout. ‘s Only room fer _one_ in mah heart. An’ she’s lackin’ somethin’. Somethin’ ah’m mighty eager fer right ‘bout now, sugar.”, she added with a wink, causing Ash to grin and finally move his hand over hers.

“...Jane wus right, by th’way… that fire gives meh _ideas_ -”

“Yeah, but ah weren’t lyin’, sugar - ah kin handle yew jus’ fine.”, Delia said, which made sure that Ash pulled her towards his room, from where they’d have a perfect view of the fire she’d started even while they made love.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like? Can you guess which song Engie is singing at the end?
> 
> If someone guesses, I'll post the entire lyrics right here :)


End file.
